The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-06-14
PANIC In THE COFFEE TRADE.
A Heavy Decline Causes Three Firms to SuS-
pend, One with Liabilities of 1000, 900.

New YORK June 13-The excitement in the
coffee market which has attended the decline in
coffee reached its highest to-day. aud the brokers
acting for the .'bulp operators became panic
stricken and rushed to sell without regard to
price. The "bulis" blame the Gruner- Crossman
syndicate for starting the decline which culmi-
mated in to-day's panic, but the 'bear" syndicate
strained every nerve to check the fall without
success. In fact, syndicate brokers were the
only buyers at the opening, which was at IL
cents q pound, over n cent below Saturdays
close, and, although rally was caused by the
bear supporting orders, the rumors OF trouble
and the continued selling caused them to stop
buying and join the 'bulls" in unloading the
stuff they had taken early All through the
forenoon the selling was coupled with the wild
est scenes ever witnessed in the exchange, and
in all the offices there were knots of
brokers gathered discussing the prospects of
recovery. In the afternoon there some hope
OF rally, but the heavy selling continued, and
soon the price fell off in heavy fluctuations until
it reached fifteen cents pound This decline
was accompanied by the notice of suspension of
three frms-B. g. Arnold 81 Co., Norton. Weyle
IL Bevan and Mackay & Small. After the
nouncement of these failures organized eff
fort was made by prominent houses like O'Don-
ahue, Gruner IL Crossman to sustain the market,
and they succeeded in causing rally of about
one cent all around. The failure of b. G..
Arnold 81 Co. attracted the most attention,
they the most prominent house in the trado,
but it was generally anticipated The senior
member of the firm caught. IN 1882. by the
collapse of one Of the largest deals ever attempt
ed in coffee, and was compelled to suspend for
over a million dollars. He started in business
again, however. and was successful in all his
ventures. He is credited with being the founder
of the Coffee Exchange and time its
president, but Aug 10 last he formed a part
nership with his son, and since then they have
done strictly commission business He ascribes
the failure to the fact that his customers were
far away that it was impossible to reach them in
time to obtain sufficient margins to meet the de-
cline. He could make statement of his liza
bities, and said that he could not cay anything
about the chances of resuming Outsiders claim
that the firm has been carrying 500, 900 bags of
coffee for the Rio de Janeiro spectators, known
the Brazilian party, and il is' estimated the
liabilities will amount to over 81 900, 900. The
Brazilian party started to buy coffee after the
Gruner- Crossman syndicate advanced the price
from to Is cents pound, and since then the
Gruner syndicate have been 'bears' on the mar
ket and said to have unloaded all their
cline is from 1.30, two weeks ago, to 10 cents
to-day, or over 6I cents pound. There was
some talk of trouble in banking circles a re-
suit of the panic. but as the banks only loaned
80 per cent of the market value coffee, it is
hard to see how any of them could have been in
volved. Mackay tS Small, one of the suspended
firms supposed to have liabilities of 5000, 600.
The liabilities of the other firms are small
The sales of the day were twice as large
any previous day in the history of the exchange.
-Four hundred and twelve thousand bags were
sold, 225, 900 bags being sold after the second
call The following table shows the result of
the suspensions and panic: